


The Messenger

by Viridian5



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-11-05
Updated: 1999-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doyle tries to figure out how his life jumped the tracks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for "City Of," vague ones for almost everything else.

"No, no, no. I'm not combat-ready, man. I'm just the messenger."  
 -- Doyle

"And I'm the message."  
  -- Angel  
from "City Of"  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This isn't the way it was supposed to go.

Listen to me, so surprised that something didn't turn out the way I thought it would. That's only the story of my whole life.

I figured my life would on pretty much the same as before. Only difference would be that sometimes I'd get a vision, take some time and Scotch to recover, and go to Angel with his assignment, if he chose to accept it. Then I'd go home, a little more of my community service finished.

Didn't turn out that way, that's for sure. Suddenly, I'm researching for him, driving him to the baddies' hideaways, digging bullets out of his undead hide, networking with some people I'd prefer didn't know I was still around, putting my scrawny neck on the line. All that just because he asked. Me hanging around all the time... Well, I can't blame all of that on him. Most of it is on my head.

Yeah, there's her. Cordelia is bright, beautiful, and way out of my league, my kind of girl all the way. And if she ever gives in to my dubious charms, I'd be very surprised. Though I would leap at the opportunity, sure, if the shock didn't kill me first.

But I don't do this for her. I do it for him.

When Angel looks at me, it's like he doesn't see trash, the little half-breed failure who never fit in or did a single good thing in his life. He doesn't see the guy who-- Well, I'd rather not remember that. He knows I did something I need serious atoning for, and that's enough. And it seems to make him like me better, since he's in the same boat guilt- and community service-wise. He seems to see someone better than I am, and that seems to be making me want to prove him right, idiot that I am. I can't help myself around him.

Sometimes he looks at me, and I swear I see something more, something we could maybe act on if he weren't cursed. Something I'm dying to act on... Wouldn't that be a wonderful mark on my record if I somehow tempted him into something that made him lose his soul, going murderous and evil again. Well, if he's suffering over any feelings he might have for me like I am for him, "true happiness" isn't anything he has to be afraid of. The penance--meaning: the torment--continues.

But it's more than how he makes me feel like I could be better if I try or how he makes me feel in general. It's also the way I can see the difference I made in his life. When I met him, he was this machine of impersonal justice, dead and cold inside for self-protection. I changed that, almost like I was the sun and-- No, sun with flower similes don't work very well for vampires, not when that human torch imagery keeps getting in there. Maybe... maybe like he was zombified, and I brought him back to life. That's not perfect either, but it's better. I did that, with my challenge to him and giving him a purpose and maybe even my presence.

It's a good feeling.

So yay him for becoming part of the world again and getting a little less humorless. Yay me that I feel like I'm doing something right for once in my life. And sometimes that feeling good almost makes me forget that I've only survived this long by being cowardly and staying hidden, because too many people have markers on me and the past burrows under your skin so it can feast on your life...

I can't help thinking that all this sticking my neck out is too tempting to the people who want to chop my head off. And what will all my love and good deeds do for me then?

 

### End


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